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Size of the 8-2 is illustrated in this front on aspect photo. The guards at either wing tip are around 10m aft of the aircraft. The leading edge houses an array of powerful sensors while the four GE turbofans are fully recessed with both inlets and exhausts mounted atop the basic airframe. The 8-2 has no vertical control surface of which to speak of
Update Northrop B-2
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Usaf Reveals B-2 Amidst Queries as to Its Real Use
November 1988 will undoubtedly go down in aviation annals as the month that stealth technology finally became public knowledge.
Early in that month the US DoD released a first ever photo of its long secret F-117A strike fighter while on the 22nd the very first Northrop B-2 stealth bomber was rolled out from its Palmdale production facility. Both aircraft virtually rewrite the aerodynamic and mission profile doctrine for future attack aircraft and at one swoop wipe out a half century of the tactical dominance of microwave based radar.
The Northrop B-2 though could ultimately have a greater effect on the struggling US defence budget than it is likely to have on Soviet radars. The programme when launched in 1981 was slated to have a programme cost of US$21. 9bn for 132 aircraft but already this has soared to US$57bn and is expected to reach US$80bn (’88 dollars) by the time the B-2 becomes operational around 1993/94. That represents a unit cost of more than US$600m per plane, or the equivalent of 18 F-15E strike fighters. In fact, the entire B-2 programme will consume funds that effectively could, by way of comparison, have funded the acquisition of up to 2,000 F-15s or over 3,000 F-16 aircraft.
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